Chapter One: Cain
If you want to get to Site 17s cafeteria, you should walk for a long a time. A very long time.
Doctor Noehl, a tall, green-eyed redhead, just thought that her coworkers could have not bothered her, as she didn't go to the cafeteria to diner.
Well, they have to bother someone.
Sarah Noehl sighed when she reached the door and instead of going straight to the main canteen, took a turn and faced a key-locked door. She used her keycard and
Doctor Kondraki was sitting next to a teenage girl with a green armband. He noticed Sarah first and wanted to greet her, but the girl was first:
- E-evening, Doctor Noehl... – the girl seemed confused, so Sarah decided to comfort her.
- Hi there, Iris. It's just Sarah, fine? - She smiled – And where the hell is Rights?
Everybody stopped eating. Doctor Clef, a man in a hat, couldn't hold himself.
- She is out for a rest. Vacation.
Noehl showed him her thumb:
- Woah, my god, that was short. Briefest one.
Clef grinned:
- Why-why. Why did you come?
Sarah's eyes popped:
- Bitch, you called me!
- Oh yeah? Oh, yeah. Sit down, then.
-We have some job to do. Possibly, a Safe bitch.
Sarah moaned dramatically
- No, not again! Hope it isn't a humanoid or a mental-whore. Hasn't old Universe thought of anything new?
- Nice try. It is cold as hell there, though it is just a bit north.
- Oh, - the woman pronounced.
- Let's go? – Clef took his ukulele, that stood next to him and which he always carried around, took Sarah's hand and lead her to the exit.
A few hours later they already wore black military outfits, were all set and on their way to the anomaly's location. The helicopter took them over a forest which looked hollow in the shadow of the flying vehicle.
Sarah thought for a second, that this forest is the place she spent her youth in, and now because of several SCPs, it died out. Nothing is permanent.
Chapter Two: Sarah
Sarah always hated the hot air. More, than anything. She always wanted to work in the North. She loved cold stuff. Nobody let her work there. So now she stood in the middle of a field, ruins of some… Church, maybe.
She crossed the ruins and stopped, feeling the cool breeze. She looked at Alto Clef, who moved towards Sarah with his hands straightened.
- What's up?
He touched Sarah, passed her, made a step behind her and then came back:
- Woman, you are so cold.
- What? – Sarah grinned
- I am serious as hell, - he sat down and touched the ground. He started digging it and Sarah jumped away. When she did, the ground fell into some kind of a hole..
Sarah sat down near the hole the appeared and put her hand in. She found something lying on the ground in the hole and took it. Her hand was shaking, so heavy the box was. The box was carved with symbols which Sarah didn't care to know.
- Sumerian? Get it into the protocol, - Sarah opened the box. There were keys inside. A lot of small keys and a large one, which took the whole box. She gave it to Alto who's been writing in the protocol. Sarah counted the keys and said:
- Twenty one, twenty one small and one large, - she picked the smallest key up – One differs from others, is it really from here?
- We should check our locals for Sumerian. He might know.
Chapter Three: Able
When the helicopter reached the base, Sarah nearly jumped off and ran into the building. She reached the Conference room for scientists in two minutes and rushed to the communicator
- SCP-073…I mean, Cain, please, come over to the CR.
While Cain was walking there, Sarah put the keys on the table. She looked up at the electronic map. Th map of Zone 17 had yellow dots – Euclid class Objects. If you switch the mode, you can see the red dots – Keter-Classes. They should remain on their place. The map also showed Safe-Classes, which didn't really need any limitations, but still were watched.
Living rooms were showed in black squares. Those were scientists' rooms. If you want to see them, you should ask The Ethics Committee. Thanking that Committee, they didn't show Iris. Iris, SCP-105, was a working type on the map. She took part in the Mobile Task Forces, Omega-7. She's survived their leader, a psychopath go insane and kill everybody. All of her MTF-Friends.
A while passed before a tall blue-eyed brunette showed up. He sat down next to Sarah in front of the table. Dr. Noehl Smiled:
- Cain, buddy, how are you today? We found something, we might need your help…
Cain responded:
- It's great, thanks, Sarah. You look beautiful today, - no matter how hard would he try, his voice still seems mechanical and cold. When he glanced at the keys, he stopped smiling and took one.
- God, I haven't seen these for ages.
Deep inside, Sarah cheered. That was the first time he ever responded so fast.
Cain turned to Sarah:
- Doctor, for the love of the Foundation and all that is good, please, wherever you found them, get them back.
- But... Why? – Sarah was quite shocked with the reaction.
- If I tell you, you'll send someone over, but that already brought us a lot of… shit, Sarah.
- Where, what's up? Cain, I promise you, just tell us. I will archive it myself, I will put them far away! Cain stood up, reached the door and sighed:
- Well, you know, I know you are guessing what's that from… - She really did. She just couldn't understand why it is so hard for old Cain to keep it in secret.
- Don't wake the sleeping dog.
Chapter Four: Decisions.
Seven hours since Sarah met Cain, all of the Scientists and Doctors were sitting in the Conference Room, excluding Sarah Noehl herself. The keys still remained on the table. Dr. Noehl came in with a stack of papers. She put them on the table and started her speech:
- I bet you already saw those keys. And the papers in front of you.
Everybody remained silent. Sarah became slightly nervous and sat down.
- Is anyone up to speak?
And it goes…
- You are a mad fuck! How could've you even thought about it?
- What will the Committee say?
Only one person stayed silent, the person was Dr. Crow, who was recognizable by his dog head. He acquired it in result of a wrong experiment. Noticing his calmness, everybody silenced.
- Sarah, girl, we got the material. Firstly, are you suicidal? You know, you… Fuck the formal language. While 76 is inside the chamber, fuck knows, what's with him. Secondly, what are you up to do, when he wakes? Fucking dance or offer him a drag? Six hours is a tiny thing to look inside the crypt, аnd will unlikely fit in there, and if you will, we need a hell load of people to collect your guts!
Sarah smiled widely:
- I knew you will act, Crow. I've done a whole frigging list of stuff I'd say to your questions. I'm not going to stay in the hell's cold for 6 hours. I'm going to take a video camera.
Crow wanted to say something, but Sarah went first.
- Don't tell me I'll get frozen. Our costumes hold down to -200. And I am not asking for your permission, you see, - the girl laid down a list with a lot of signatures, - I am warning. I beg you to watch. Who will?
Clef, who was silent all the time, raised his hand. Crow raised his hand and then Kondraki, who was mumbling something rather rude to himself, raised a hand, too.
- Domo oregato! I knew you'll be up, seven o'clock, tomorrow.
The girl grinned, put the keys into the box and ran out of the room.
Chapter Five: Choose your fighter.
When Sarah woke up the nest morning, she reached the window and gazed outside, seeing the sun. It already left the forest and shined somewhere above, so you can see the training complex behind which they had a helipad.
Helipads were located from four sides of the building not the usual sides of the Earth though. The one Dr. Noehl looked at was located in the north-west. That's where she was going that day. She dressed in a light military cloth, got her stuff inside of a backpack, lightweight, too. She thought that she would find a better, a proofer costume on the spot.
Alto Clef, Kondraki and Crow stayed in the operational room of the helipad and waited for had a shotgun with him. When he first entered, Kondraki said:
- Won't help. Only if you get him in the head several times, though he is so fast you can't even think about that. Trust me.
When Sarah and everyone else united and reached the helicopter itself, they stayed silent. Sarah wasn't fond of the silence, because she knew it was about her decision.
- How d'you plan to kill him now?
Clef responded:
- He kinda is. The water is out, too.
Subject 76, which consisted of a stone cube and a fussy boy inside, had a special Containment Zone. Despite that you still couldn't really survive, if you work with him. And it wasn't about the cube. The humanoid inside was a simple-minded misanthrope who thought of himself as the salt of the Earth and couldn't really live the life without killing. Once he dies, he goes to the cube. He needed minimum 6 hours to regenerate, but who knew, when he would next wake up. Doctor Kondraki once said that he is a mosquito. Flies around with crazy speed, suck your blood, then you kill him; later you see the same mosquito and it starts again.
The mosquito had a name, which was Able.
Once when the Foundation started trusting him, he had The Omega-7 Task Forces – the ones Iris was in. He killed everyone.
- Poor girl, - they say.
- Iris got over it. She doesn't want to do such things now, though.
Sarah got the revolver she got from her dead sister. It had initials on it – 'DN' for Dana Noehl She checked it and put it back.
- Going there with this tiny revolver is pure suicide, - Alto was trying to prevent Sarah from going to the cube, but she was unstoppable. The black thing was hanging in the middle of the Containment Room, symbols on it were shining.
- Just going there is suicide, - Dr. Crow cut.
Sarah pushed a nervous grin out of herself and entered the elevator. Doors closed.
- Roger, Roger, 1-2-3?
A communicator shooed in her ear:
- Roger.
Sarah reached the lower floor, left the elevator and walked through the Death Corridor. She became confused.
Inside the room, fear gained around her. There's no way back now. Any moment the cube could've opened and she could've been killed. There'd be no time to reach the door and leave – while Containment is breached, you can never leave the room.
There was no escape
There were 21 keyholes. Sarah checked if there was the correct amount of keys and put the smallest one, which wasn't from there, inside her pocket. Just in case. The keys were put into the keyholes, then the larger one. The door clicked mysteriously and opened.
- Oh, shit, - Sarah put her hand against her mouth, - it's damn victory!
Crow responded on that:
- I am not into such things, but shut up, Sarah.
Kondraki asked if Noehl really wanted to go there.
Sarah didn't answer. She put her mask on, her gloves, checked her costume and took a step in. She then jumped into the cube and said:
- The door should close in this story, but it doesn't.
- Take it easy, trying to relax? Relax.
- How could you relax when you're a Schrödinger's cat?
- Girl, damn it! You went in yourself! Nobody asked you to!
The girl took a torch out of her pocket and lit it, she looked around and saw something on the other end of the cube. The thing was behind the coffin which was set there. The sad thing was that the coffin wasn't empty.
And if you want to reach the thing Sarah saw, you should jump over.
- Maybe you shouldn't? –Clef asked.
- It's too late to say what I should and what I shouldn't do.
Noehl put her hands on the coffin and nothing happened.
She rushed over and sat under it. When she slowly got to the box, she realized, that that was a box, which had a small keyhole.
The key.
She took the key out of her pocket and opened the box.
Nobody except Sarah saw what were the contains.
- Do you see it? Oh, do you?
- No, what's that?
- Oh fuck, it's not important...
Clef shook his head and saw a jet black object near the lower edge of the monitor It was something that held near Sarah's neck.
Noehl breathed out slowly and whispered:
- I…
The monitor shook and a scream broke out of the girls lungs. The camera died and everybody stuck to the second monitor, which showed the thing outside.
Something flew out of the cube and hit the wall.
- Sarah!
A sword, which was probably lying in the box, dropped near her. The girl was shaking, she hardly got on her knees. She threw her mask to another end of the room.
- A girl! – An angry voice was reaching out of the cube. A very tall, heavily tattooed and slender boy came out. He didn't have anything on except for a red cape. He jumped of the cube and reached the girl.
- Up for a fucking sacrifice, are you?! – He hit Sarah with his leg. She tried to stand up, but the man took her and pushed her against the wall, - a virgin's blood shalln't go, do you damn hear me?
A patience switch clicked deep inside Kondraki and he screamed into the monitor:
- Able, you fucking son of a bitch! Let her go!
He dropped Sarah on the floor and turned to the camera.
- Oh really? I'm able to let 'er go, but to let her go at all? Fuck you! – He faced the girl again. She took the sword and stood up, clinging to the all.
- We've got to get her out! – Kondraki ran out. Crow reached the shotgun near Clef and ran out too. Clef followed him.
While that happened, Able reached the girl which stood unstable and yelled:
- You can't beat me, so you fuck with my pity? Don't you dare, bitches! I'll have some fun at least. You shall fight!
The girl blinked, and when she did, Able had a similar sword in his hand.
The girl straightened and moved her shoulder. Able responded with an evil smile.
- How much fun, you let me go first! Haven't you thought that I'm damn stronger than you are, no?
Sarah laughed weakly:
- But I would die a fucking heroine!
- If you don't want to live, I don't care, weak whore!
Able reached her and hit her. Sarah parried. Able hit her with the handle and she fled off, her hand hurt.
- You are not so pitiful. I could've trained you, - Sarah realized how she could at least hit him. Able raised his hand to make the final hit
- Too bad you don't fit in, - Sarah rushed her sword into Able's belly, though the man, who didn't feel pain at all, went a little surprised.
Using that, Sarah sled her hand upwards, Able fell down.
The door opened and the girl fell down. Clef and Kondraki got her into the corridor, while Crow reached in with a shotgun.
He saw the Object, got out of the room, terrified, closed the door and turned to Sarah.
- Jesus Christ, - he said shocked, - His body is fucked up. Completely. From belly to neck. How? He'll do the same to you.
- No, I won't dare messing with him now.